Shadow Hunter
by Weirdlet
Summary: A slightly different take on the Wild Hunt. Unfinished.
1. Default Chapter

Chapter 1. Europe 

     Softly, he removed the spear from between the ribs of his prey and made quick work of the kill.  Arrhruhiih soon had the skull of a great challenge hanging from his belt, and the remains hung to keep from spooking the rest.  It had been a glorious chase, and a glorious night.

     Not for him the soul-carrying bones, the identifying skull and backbone, of mere followers and companions to the great prize.  Let others fill their section of wall with lesser kills, picked off alongside a truly worthy beast to increase numbers and reputation, or chances of a season-mate during the fertile season.  For him the chase and the challenge, to match wits and skills and prove himself the greater, was a greater pleasure than long nights with a female lust-scented and beautifully heavy with his offspring, or seeing impressed faces among the younglings and warriors.

     A button tapped on his left wrist, and the time flashed in the upper right corner of his vision.

     He growled and salivated.  Good.  There was time yet for another chase.

     Arrhruhiih watched the shrouded figures ride.  It would _seem_ that they were more _huurrrehhhhhra_, humans, but their garb and manners did not fit with the others he had witnessed.  Their mounts were strange, cool where such relatively massive creatures should retain great amounts of heat, except for painfully hot eyes.  They themselves were strange, still within normal range for their kind but in the cooler end of the spectrum.  At least, the followers were.  The leader was just beyond corpse-like heat-color where they were just short.  Its external ear flaps were pointed instead of round, and on examination with a magnifying filter, it had fangs.  Its helmet was antlered where others bore horned or plain.

     They rode with a purpose, and he followed silently through the trees and watched.  His cloaking did nothing to ease the chill of the night, and his cold blood could not heat itself.  Other hunters broke and ran when the comfortable heat did.  He did not, and had contempt for those who were less devoted to the hunt than to mere sport.  They rode on and still he followed.

     Some of the territory began to look familiar, and he realized they were where he had hung the unused remains of his prize.  His eyes narrowed.  The leader made some silent signal and the lot halted.  Arrhruhiih watched the authoritative stride, the absolute sureness of power radiating from it- _him_.  Oh, what a worthy prize!  This was definitely the leader of the pack.

     The antler-helmed leader stood right beneath the hung carcass, and from where he crouched on a sturdy tree limb Arrhruhiih could hear him sniff the air.  He did not even flinch in surprise as the otherworldly creature turned swiftly and quietly and gazed up at him.  They recognized each other.  They were both hunters, both challenging.

     Let the competition between them be that of equals.

     Arrhruhiih stood tall on the branch, and the other's gaze followed him upright, always resting on his face.  A terrifying mandibled grin grew behind his emotionless mask.  He dropped to the ground.

     The antlered leader made a small motion with head and hand, and his followers backed away, mounts and all.  Clearly, he understood. 

     The combat was swift, brutal, and skilled.  Only a primary blade was used, twinned wrist-knives meeting, deflecting and being deflected by a single long blade, that he knew was called _sword_.  And after much time, Arrhruhiih looked up into the face of the antler-helmed prey-leader and coughed blood.  Blackness closed in.


	2. Chapter 2.

Chapter 2.

     A nudge at his shoulder awoke him.  Arrhruhiih blinked dazedly up at the foot that prepared to nudge him again.  He reached out and flipped its owner onto his back.

     Confused, he staggered upright, looking down at himself.  He should be dead.  He had died in fair combat with an equal, no matter that no other hunter would recognize a mere prey-beast as an equal partner.  He should be in the warrior's paradise, proving himself worthy to the Burning Goddess to be reborn.

     Instead, he stood and stared first down at his corpse-cool hands, and then around at the strange hunter-humans who watched him.  The one he had tripped raised himself from the ground, holding the reigns of another of the mount beasts, larger by far than the rest.  It turned one blindingly hot eye toward him, and stamped a hoof impatiently.

     The whisper came on the quiet, deadly-cool breeze that no longer made him wish he could shiver and warm himself.

     _Welcome, brother.  Welcome, newest huntsman._

     He gaped.

     The antler-crowned leader turned toward him.

     _You are mine.  I claim you for the Wild Hunt, greatest of challengers.  You are different than the rest.  You refused to be hunted._

     Arrhruhiih would have sworn there was amusement in the not-whisper.  The leader made his species' (or perhaps not? . . .) approximation of a smirk.

     _I tell you once, as I tell all huntsmen once.  You are mine.  I claim you with the right of predator to prey, and you will follow me.  You may increase your rank from trophy follower to aiding me in the Hunt if you are skilled, and can take your position from the one who carries it._

     Arrhruhiih thought.  Most would object to serving an inferior, a mere animal, not of the hunter- and warrior-kind.  But for him, respect for the Hunt and the Hunter transcended mere species.  He had been bested fairly, though his kin would call it dishonor.  He tilted back his head and exposed his throat to his hunt-leader.

     Again, a whisper of amusement.

     _Mount, and follow._

     Leaving the new trainee to figure how to ride his great beast and join the others.

Some time later (don't ask how long precisely, time runs different here . . .)

     Arrhruhiih collapsed.  The training of a huntsman was exhausting, painful, and confusing, and there was no turning back.  He had let his thoughts wander to such things, and the bonds of his oath constricted him agonizingly, like fire across his brain.  No, he had bared throat to his chosen leader, even though there had been no actually choice of acceptance, and he would obey.

     He could no longer feel the cold, and for that he was profoundly thankful.  It was unnerving enough looking down at himself and seeing the temperature of a dead creature.  In the fortress of the hunters, there were walls of stone that seemed to absorb all heat, though fires were everywhere a huntsman was.  They went out when he left and flared when he entered a room.  And that was nowhere _near_ the strangest part of what he'd gotten himself into.

     As he lay in his quarters, he could hear the shuffling and deep voiced-sounds of the steeds.  He squeezed his eyes shut, not even wanting to think of how he felt after riding the huge beast assigned to him.  Suffice to say, his thigh and groin armor was insufficient.  The ways of the Wild Hunt were foreign to him, but he would learn, he would increase his rank, and he would strive to become the ultimate hunter he could.

     Now if only having been killed once meant you didn't ache so.

     His seniors in the Hunt trained him by example in the one hunt he'd shared in so far, as well as by lore of many past expeditions, and his previous devotion to the chase served him well as a base for all the new learning.  They only hunted this one planet, but there could be many worlds in one, he had learned.  Arrhruhiih knew that the fortress in which he know resided could never be found if another warrior combed every inch of the planet's surface.  Likewise, there were places the hunt traveled where beasts he had never seen or could have imagined dwelled.  And he would hunt them all.

     That drew a small grin from him.  He was progressing rapidly, and the skulls of demons and things called _dragons_, _trolls_, and the dangerous _merfolk_ would soon hang under his name.  His immediate superiors snarled amongst themselves and grew worried.  They knew he could fight, and no other trainee had ever been this _willing_ to hunt and to advance his position, not so soon and so intensely.  Their own positions were beginning to look rather tenuous.

     These comforting thoughts slew the mood Arrhruhiih had been in.  He leaned back on his bed (yet another strange part of this place), and smirked up at the ceiling.  Yes, he'd say the discomfort and strange ways of his group were a small price to pay for a chance to be the ultimate hunter.

     A twinge in his thigh mocked him.  He snarled back.


End file.
